A sweet tale of dealing with estrangement and finding belonging.
A 12-year-old girl struggles after a move across continents.
María Emilia, who goes by the pet name Mimilia, is a Miami-born Argentine girl who is excited about finishing seventh grade and singing a solo in her school choir at graduation. But her plans to celebrate before entering Argentine high school in eighth grade are derailed when her mother gets a job teaching Latin American history at a college in Utah. Leaving her hometown of Mendoza with her parents and two younger brothers also means leaving her grandma Lela behind—and her aging cat, Estrellita. As a parting gift, Lela gives Mimilia a binder full of letters from her great-grandmother Nonna Celestina, written after she emigrated from Italy to Argentina at age 12. But even with this sage epistolary guidance, Mimilia is having a hard time finding her voice in her new home. She feels like a foreigner in the country where she was born and grapples with new foods, feeling self-conscious about her accent, making new friends, and having to repeat seventh grade. Her only consolation is a stray dog who shows up, reminding her of her beloved cat—and who ultimately helps make Utah feel more like home. Méndez presents an entertaining and endearing tale of resilience in the face of change and loss as well as the opportunities that can come when challenges are met.
A sweet tale of dealing with estrangement and finding belonging. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-68466-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
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